


There Are Lines

by Niightmoves



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Guns, Heavy Angst, Isolation, One Shot, Post-Episode: s09e13 The Purge, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niightmoves/pseuds/Niightmoves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Season9, Ep13, The Purge. Sam tells Dean he doesn't want to be brothers anymore. Dean is rocked by Sam's revelation and the hurt is almost too much to bear. Warning: this is dark. Dean's thoughts are not a happy place.  Trigger warnings for thoughts of suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Lines

 

There are lines, and then there are lines. The ones that guide you and the ones you don’t cross. Lines like the white stripes on the highway that pull you along; never ending lines on a ribbon of asphalt and there’s a comfort in that. Lines on the highway as it stretches out before you, straight and true, never wavering- never deviating. You go and come back in a year or three, it’ll still be there. You can count on it.

Unlike people. He’s known that. He’s always known that. It’s just…

Lines are there for one reason, he thinks; to order the world.  Toe the line. Get in line. Fall in line. He’s done his share of that, he smiles bitterly.  Fall in line like the soldier he was in a secret war that nobody would believe if you told them. Doing the right thing. Proving yourself. Never wavering. Toeing the fucking line. Every goddamn time. Every. Time.

A life spent following the example his father set in stone before him. Do what’s got to be done. No questions, no take backs. You do what’s right and that’s all there is to it. No thinking about what might have beens. You’re there to do a job. Your life. Your mission. A line set in stone that you don’t cross.

A life he accepted as his fate so long ago that he doesn’t question it anymore. Not that he did much, except those times when he was weak and beaten down.  In those moments of stillness in the night when he lay awake, with a tiny voice asking him why. Why was he doing this? Putting himself through this suffering when it seemed to be one futile act after another with no payoff, no feeling that it made a goddamned difference. He learned early to silence that little voice of uncertainty. Push it down; _bury it, bury it, bury it_ \- until he could convince himself to get up in the morning and do it all over again. Just follow the lines on the highway, it’ll be alright. It’ll be alright. It was what he did.

He stands there at the sink, washing the same glass over and over, and the dishwater’s getting cold, but he can’t get past the pain, so he washes the glass.

There are lines you don’t cross. Some things were inviolate.  Save the innocent. Kill the wicked. Above all; take care of your brother. A mantra so ingrained it was a part of the fabric of his being. A tenant so sacrosanct that the very idea of breaking it was inconceivable; abhorrent- yet he’s lost count of the innocents he’s sacrificed in the name of The Job. He doesn’t even kill the wicked anymore. No. Makes deals with them, or worse than that, becomes their bitch. And his brother? Well, that's a fucking laugh riot; because after a lifetime of making Sam number one, it turns out he’s the clueless fool that did it all wrong- fucked up so bad- that his own brother didn’t want to be related to him.

He sits at the table and pours another drink. Not that it stops the pain. The ache he feels in his chest is getting worse by the day.  Spends his days on the verge of tears, but he holds on, just barely. The hurt’s so palpable and close to the top, as if all it needs is one prick, one tiny tear, to rend him in two and there’s no hope of stopping it.

Broken is all he can think. Broken open and all his soft parts cut and burning. His lies exposed. His weaknesses. His failures.  If he could just forget everything. _He just wants to forget_.

He sits and cleans his gun. It used to soothe him; a comforting routine that was as familiar to him as breathing. As familiar as seeing Sam sitting in the seat next to him, hair blowing in the wind. He polishes the barrel; traces his finger over the engraving on the side and knows how fucked up he is to have such affection for this thing that’s killed so many.

He polishes and polishes as if he might polish away the stain on his soul. Cleans the Colt with the same reverence as always. He looks at it, damning him, this thing that’s just like he is; beautiful and hard and made for one purpose; to kill.

He runs his hands over it, so familiar under his touch; an extension of him, really. So fitting that he’s made it part of himself, this murderous tool; just as he’s nothing more than a murderer. Good for nothing but killing. Handing out death and capable of nothing more. Just as he is nothing.

The barrel is cold and hard as he presses his lips against the side. Almost like a kiss, he thinks. Smooth and smelling of gun oil with a faint poisonous taint. He slips out his tongue and licks it. Bitter and faintly sulfurous, he can almost taste absolution under the oily tang.

 

**

**Author's Note:**

> At this writing, there's still a lot of debate about what Sam meant about not wanting to be brothers and what Dean heard. My personal thoughts are that Dean is much more fragile than Sam knows, and more than he wants to admit to himself. Possible chapter of a longer story.


End file.
